CCP Financials - Eve Online (ex China) Revenues

This post continues my series looking at the CCP financial position.  The published CCP Accounts are on this page, and my forecasts are on this page.

In this post, I am looking at the revenues of Eve Online (ex China).

. . . . . my game related conclusion would be that would lead me to conclude that we should expect a lot more effort by CCP to keep new players, including enhanced "carebear" protection.

Any analysis of CCP today will always start with the revenues of Eve Online (ex China).  In 2012 Eve Online (ex China) accounted for 98% of the total revenues of CCP.  For now, Eve Online is the business of CCP.

The revenues of Eve Online is somewhat more complicated that subscribers multiplied by price paid.  Indeed, the main drivers of revenues that I have identified are:

1. the number of subscribers per year: it is not clear what CCP discloses but I suspect in their presentations they disclose the number of subscribers during the year (or the number of subscribers present at the year-end).  And for good measure I had to try and read these of a graph.

2. the average number of months each subscriber stays for: whilst many players have been subscribing for many years I suspect there are many many more who subscribe for 1 or 3 months and then give up.  Therefore, the average number of months each subscriber stays for during a year is important.  Its all very well having 355,000 subscribers but if 100,000 of them are only around for 1 month then that is 100,000 new subscribers that have to be found the following month to keep numbers up.  I have not found any indication from CCP how this looks - so I had to analyse it myself.

3. the price for a 1, 3, 6, 12 month subscription: there are different price points depending on the length of the subscription.  These price points are known.

4. the proportion of 1, 3, 6, 12 month subscriptions purchased by the subscribers: follows on from the above point, we need to determine what proportion of the subscribers take each length of subscription.  I have not found any indication from CCP how this looks - so I had to analyse it myself.

5. the mix of revenues that are Plex sales: Plex sales are in part additional revenues to CCP but they also perhaps replace subscriptions.  The ultimate end buyer of a Plex may start a new account that would not otherwise have been started (so no loss to CCP) or may replace their subscription by buying Plex (like I do) in which case CCP is only slightly better off (by Plex price less Subscription price).  CCP has disclosed that 20 - 25% of revenues are from Plex in recent times.  Plex sales started in November 2008.

So, starting with the Plex - it does seem the easiest: given the sales started in 2008 I assumed that 10% of revenues in 2008 came from Plex sales (bumper sales in November and December 2008), in 2009 I assumed that Plex sales accounted for 15% of revenues, in 2010 22% of revenues, in 2011 23% of revenues and then in 2012 24% of revenues - as shown in the table below.  I don't have anyway of knowing this for sure.  CCP tells us that Plex accounts for 20 to 25% of revenues.

Eve Online - ex China
	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012
Sales mix
Subscriptions	90%	85%	78%	77%	76%
Plex sales	10%	15%	22%	23%	24%
	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%
Plex sales	4,166,889	7,767,364	12,470,378	14,293,372	15,062,430
change		86.4%	60.5%	14.6%	5.4%
Price per Plex	19.95	19.95	19.95	19.95	19.95
Number of Plex sold	208,867	389,342	625,082	716,460	755,009
Number per month	17,406	32,445	52,090	59,705	62,917
Additional "accounts"		11%	16%	17%	18%

However, I can do some sense checks.  If I assume the price for a Plex is $19.95 (I know, they can be discounted) then using my assumptions of sales from Plex I can determine the number of Plex sold in 2008 to 2012 and so get a feel for the number per month which would give an indication of the additional accounts that Plex finances (assumes all Plex goes to new accounts in that year - in reality there will be buffer stock and other uses).  In 2010 it looks like 52,090 additional accounts per month = 16% additional accounts, in 2011 59,705 additional accounts = 17% additional accounts and in 2012 62,917 additional accounts = 18% additional accounts.  That seems to look sensible.


and now lets look at the subscription revenues: the table below shows my thinking with my full discussion below it.  The chart below also adds in the Plex sales from above.  Worth remembering, we know the Eve Online revenues for 2008 to 2012, all we are trying to do is break down how the above drivers fit in so we can then extrapolate forwards to 2013 and 2014.

Eve Online - ex China
	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012
Number of subscribers	225,000	300,000	320,000	355,000	355,000
change	28.6%	33.3%	6.7%	10.9%	0.0%
average length per subscriber (mths)	12.0	11.0	10.4	10.1	10.1
Proportion of payment plans taken
Price per subscription for 1 mth	70%	60%	60%	60%	60%
Price per subscription for 3 mths	30%	30%	30%	30%	30%
Price per subscription for 6 mths	0%	10%	10%	10%	10%
	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%
Price per month per plan $
Price per subscription for 1 mth	14.95	14.95	14.95	14.95	14.95
Price per subscription for 3 mths	11.36	11.36	11.36	11.36	11.36
Price per subscription for 6 mths	9.55	9.55	9.55	9.55	9.55
Average subscription	13.87	13.33	13.33	13.33	13.33
Subscription revenues	37,502,004	44,015,060	44,213,158	47,851,724	47,697,693
change		17.4%	0.5%	8.2%	-0.3%
Sales mix
Subscriptions	90%	85%	78%	77%	76%
Plex sales	10%	15%	22%	23%	24%
	100%	100%	100%	100%	100%
Plex sales	4,166,889	7,767,364	12,470,378	14,293,372	15,062,430
change		86.4%	60.5%	14.6%	5.4%
Price per Plex	19.95	19.95	19.95	19.95	19.95
Number of Plex sold	208,867	389,342	625,082	716,460	755,009
Number per month	17,406	32,445	52,090	59,705	62,917
Additional "accounts"		11%	16%	17%	18%
Total Revenues	41,668,893	51,782,424	56,683,536	62,145,096	62,760,123
change		24.3%	9.5%	9.6%	1.0%

Number of subscribers - we know from the chart issued by CCP, assuming I am reading it correctly!

Again, assuming my Plex sales mixes are correct then there are three key steps to get from Subscriber numbers to revenues: average length of a subscriber x proportion of subscribers going for 1 / 3 / 6 month payment plans x the price of the 1 / 3 / 6 month payment plans.  I have assumed that too small a proportion to matter goes for 12 month plans.

Of course, I don't know the answer to this and I cant find anywhere that CCP has disclosed this so I had to make assumptions.  Furthermore, I assumed the introduction of Plex has altered the proportion of payment plans taken up.  I have assumed that players that were long standing but paid monthly were more likely to buy Plex (they probably gather more ISK in game and so have the most to benefit from using Plex to extend their game time) and so the proportion of payment plans for 1 month fell after 2008.

In all, in 2008 I assumed 70% of subscribers paid monthly and 30% 3 monthly - and the average length of a subscriber was 12 months.  And then in 2009 onwards I assumed this moved to 60% monthly plans, 30% 3 monthly and 10% 6 monthly but that the average length of stay fell to 11 months in 2009, trending down to 10 months by 2012 reflecting the very steep learning curve as players give up.

Worth noting that given the subscriber numbers in 2008 and the price points I really struggled to make the revenues numbers add up - either prices were higher, or Plex was higher priced, or more Plex sold in 2008 than I thought.  I was surprised at how high I had to make the proportion of 1 month payment plans.

I have also not taken into account in price discounts given in pre-expansion periods etc.

Hence, by the end of 2012 I am assuming:

- that the average number of months a subscriber stays for is 10
- that 60% pay monthly / 30% 3 monthly / 10% 6 monthly
- that the monthly price for 1 month is $14.95, 3 months  $11.36 and 6 months $9.55
- that the proportion of revenues that are Plex sales costing $19.95 each is 76%

Therefore, to determine 2013 and 2014 I need to assess the likely subscriber growth and how the above changes.

We already know the 6 month numbers for 2013 and using these I therefore assume subscribers grow by 22% to 433,100 in 2013 followed by 10% growth in 2014 to 476,000.  I assume the average length of stay of a subscriber stays at 10 months as CCP makes efforts to lessen the steep learning curve and more attempts to protect new players.  I assume the pricing points and proportion of 1 / 3 / 6 monthly sales does not change.  And I assume Plex sales are 25% in both 2013 and 2014.  That, therefore, leads to the Eve Online revenues below which then feed into my forecasts on this page.

Eve Online - ex China
	2011	2012	2013F	2014F
Number of subscribers	355,000	355,000	433,100	476,410
change	10.9%	0.0%	22.0%	10.0%
average length per subscriber (mths)	10.1	10.1	10.1	10.1
mix
Price per subscription for 1 mth	60%	60%	60%	60%
Price per subscription for 3 mths	30%	30%	30%	30%
Price per subscription for 6 mths	10%	10%	10%	10%
	100%	100%	100%	100%
Price per month
Price per subscription for 1 mth	14.95	14.95	14.95	14.95
Price per subscription for 3 mths	11.36	11.36	11.36	11.36
Price per subscription for 6 mths	9.55	9.55	9.55	9.55
Average subscription	13.33	13.33	13.33	13.33
Subscription revenues	47,851,724	47,697,693	58,322,675	64,154,943
change	8.2%	-0.3%	22.3%	10.0%
Sales mix
Subscriptions	77%	76%	75%	75%
Plex sales	23%	24%	25%	25%
	100%	100%	100%	100%
Plex sales	14,293,372	15,062,430	19,440,892	21,384,981
change	14.6%	5.4%	29.1%	10.0%
Price per Plex	19.95	19.95	19.95	19.95
Number of Plex sold	716,460	755,009	974,481	1,071,929
Number per month	59,705	62,917	81,207	89,327
Additional "accounts"	17%	18%	19%	19%
Total Revenues	62,145,096	62,760,123	77,763,567	85,539,924
change	9.6%	1.0%	23.9%	10.0%

In all, I expect revenues for Eve Online to grow by 23.9% in 2014 to $77.8m and then by 10.0% in 2014 to $85.5m.

The main driver may look like subscriber growth.  For every additional 1% of subscribers the revenues rise by 0.8% (=$637k).

However, if CCP managed to increase the average subscription length by half a month to 10.6 months then revenues would rise by 5.0% (=$3.8m).

Indeed, if CCP managed to increase the proportion of Plex sales from 25% to 26% of revenues then total revenues would rise by 1.4% (=$1.1m).

Hence, subscriber growth is not the only focus - the more CCP can do to keep new players and convert players to starting new accounts with Plex then the better it is for CCP.

Keeping everyone for half a month longer is better than adding an additional 4,000 new subscribers.

. . . . . . that would lead me to conclude that we should expect a lot more effort by CCP to keep new players, including enhanced "carebear" protection.

October Update

I was very surprised how well this month went given i was away for half of it.

As ever, I only spend 30 to 45 minutes online during week days - assuming I am not away on business.

Wealth increased by 7.3bn ISK to 30.6bn ISK.  Which is an average of 236m ISK per day.

I am now buying a Plex a month to finance my second account and from January i will be buying two Plex per month as my Main account will need financing.

I have been fortunate enough that some people have been using the Buddy Programme link to the right >>>> which has financed my Main account to the end of the year.

As ever, i sit with too much surplus ISK which needs to be invested.  Current surplus is 8.6bn ISK – it is dead money.


Dodixie trader: Life remains good for this trader.  Items for sale are sitting at a steady level of 11.3bn ISK whilst items for purchase have risen to 1.6bn ISK compared to 0.9bn ISK in the last month – this alt is slowly entering the station trading market.  The alt is currently using 115 of the 141 trading slots.  I have found some new higher priced items to sell which still make the 20% margin - the plan is to continue to find a few of these a month.

I suspect this trader makes 120m ISK profit per day at least when i am not away from the game, and i suspect this can still rise from here as i increase my “station trading” and find higher priced items to “Regional trade”.

It pays 0.80% broker fees to post an order and a further 0.90% sales tax on a successful sale.  No longer training.

There are no medium term goals for this alt – just sticking to business as usual whilst increasing its station trading income.


Hek trader: Life is slow here though no slower than last month.  I mean to look into what else this trader can sell but October was otherwise busy.  The main items it sells are skillbooks.  It is using 79 of the 129 trading slots.

I suspect this trader operates 30% of the level of the Dodixie trader.  Even if i log in every day i don’t always sell enough items in Hek to justify a replenishment haul from Jita every day.

Pays 0.80% broker fees to post an order and a further 0.90% sales tax on a successful sale.  No longer training.

The pre-xmas plan is to find new income sources for this trader.

Manufacturing alt: This alt is gathering momentum.  During the month it made sales of 6.3bn ISK and profits of 2.1bn ISK, which compares to the 1.0bn ISK profits last month.

I now have a list of 33 items i focus on to sell, currently selling 23 of them as the other items have too low a profitability.  I started selling Industrial ships but there is no profit in these for now -  i don’t focus on these anymore.

It currently has 3.4bn ISK of sell orders listed compared to 0.5bn at the end of last month.

I now own 39 blueprints worth just over 1bn ISK, most of which have already comfortably paid for themselves.

I have moved my manufacturing alt into Lonetrek.  Close to Jita but there are plenty of manufacturing slots available.  The downside is that i can’t update or see my sell orders in Jita from the Lonetrek region given Jita is in a different region.

At the moment, i believe my manufacturing alt makes 70m ISK profits per day = 2.1bn ISK per month.  At this stage, i am considering that a success given that i knew nothing about manufacturing 3 months ago.  Furthermore, i can honestly say that one alt which takes up 15 minutes per day will be able to fully finance both my accounts and leave plenty of spare change for a “slap up meal at Mrs Miggins pie shop” . . . . an old Blackadder quote!

If i had to have only one alt to finance my playtime, i now suspect i would go down the manufacturing route – it is takes up very little time and is quite fun.

During November i plan to add more items onto the list of items to sell and see how far i can push the profits this alt can make.

On skill training – being away on business alot has meant i have neglected a medium term plan for this alt and just left the skill training ticking over.  When i come back from business next week this alt will have completed Advanced Mass Production Level 5 thus allowing it use manufacturing slots at once.

My pre-Christmas goal for this alt is to determine its carear path which will require me to do a lot of reading up on manufacturing!

Rent a Corporation Office?

On a side note, i could rent a Corporation Office in my Lonetrek station for 3m ISK per month compared to Jita of 2.9bn ISK, Dodixie of 141m ISK and Hek of 132m ISK.  Tempting – but it would be a vanity item for now.

Mental note to self that i really need to look into Corporations. At present i use my Corporation to hold spare cash, do all the purchasing and issue the hauling contracts.  For now, it serves to streamline my business process.  It does, though, look like a lot of fun to be had with all the corporation mechanics available.


The new account:  I started a new account in September which will cost me a plex a month to maintain, i.e. 580m ISK per month at todays prices.

I am training this character up in Research skills.  Whilst it is doing this it is my buyer in Jita – so he buys the items for the traders to sell in Dodixie and Hek.  As ever, the items are hauled there by Pushx Industries.

Similarly to my manufacturing alt, the medium term plan is ticking over given i am away alot on business.  Currently training Advanced Laboratory Operation Level 5 which will allow me to run 11 Laboratory slots at once.

My pre-Christmas goals for this alt is also to determine its career path which will require me to do a lot of reading up on Research and also for this alt to start contributing to my wealth.


November will see me away from the game again for almost half of it - so it may end up being a slow month.


Current Wealth:

Expected business purchases in the next 30 days
Plex 580,000,000 ISK

I don't count assets I use in the course of my business such as ships, fittings etc nor do I add back any expenses such as skills purchased etc.  The wealth I disclose is made up of items that are ISK or are in the process of being converted to ISK.

* I take a 20% provision against the items I am selling.  Eve calculates wealth by adding up the value of the sell orders hence it is possible to increase your wealth by buying an item for 100m ISK and putting a sell order for 120m ISK (in this case your wealth would increase by 20m ISK).  For me, I want my wealth to be calculated at cost until i finally hold it as ISK.  I know that the value of my sell orders will likely fall over time as I update my orders downwards as competition reduces their prices before my items are sold.  Hence the 20% provision is my best guess as to what cost is or at least the maximum reduction I would need to make to my sell orders as a whole before they are sold.

CCP Financial Position

I am introducing a new feature in my Blog which will look at the financial position of CCP, the producer of Eve Online.

I have introduced two new pages:

CCP Financials (as Published) which shows the Profit & Loss Account, Balance Sheet and Cash Flow Statement as published by CCP for 2009 to 2012.

CCP Financials (my forecasts) which shows the last 2 years of the published financials and my efforts at forecasting the next 2, so 2011 to 2014.

All posts on the CCP financial position will come under the label <CCP Financials>

Given CCP issued a $20m convertible bond in July 2012 and listed it on the NASDAQ OMX exchange in July 2013 we have more financial data available to work with.

There will be many more posts on this including discussions on how I arrived at my forecasts and observations into the published CCP financials - my next post on the CCP Financials will look at how I determined the Eve Online revenues forecasts.

For now though, in Summary, we are looking at a profitable company that is spending more cash than it generates to develop new games - hence it is having to borrow money to maintain its spending plans.  2014 will be a key year in proving the profitability of CCP - the company needs EVE Online to continue to grow at the very least through 2013 and into 2014.  It does not need any of its other ventures to come through to be a viable company.

Don't confuse profits with cash - there are differences.  CCP generates profits but it does not generate cash at this stage.  Eventually, a company has to generate cash or it goes insolvent  I expect CCP to generate cash in 2014.  In the last 5 years CCP has only generated cash in one year and that was 2009.  The main difference between cash and profits is the costs of developing new games and expansion packs are not expensed until later but of course the cash has to be paid now.

Net debt at the end of 2012 (i.e. all borrowings less cash) was $12.4m and I expect this to rise to $17.1m in 2013 before falling back in 2014 [in my pages I refer to Net Cash which is the -ve of Net Debt].  I don't see any problem at this stage with refinancing the convertible bond which is due in July 2016.

My forecasts may be a little too high on the revenues though I have nothing in for Dust at this stage.

Revenues in 2012 were $65.3m off 355,000 subscribers and I expect this to rise to $80.7m off 483,100 subscribers in 2013 (includes China).  However, profits after all costs in 2012 were $4.7m and I expect this to fall to $1.9m in 2013 due to rising Development amortisation for the launch of Dust (i.e. once Dust was launched all the Development spending can now be expensed through the Profit & Loss account over 4 years which in the initial years will be higher than the revenues Dust brings in - hence, Dust is loss making in its first year or two).

2012 did not see any growth in the number of subscribers and hence no growth in revenues.  However, a rise in Marketing costs and a rise in amortisation of prior Development costs (poor expansion packs have a cost but little revenue generation!) caused profits to almost halve to $4.7m, and hence net debt rose from $8.9m to $12.4m.

Below the operating profit line the accounts are messy with currency movements and tax credits all over the place.  If I focused on operating profits then in 2012 operating profits fell from $7.8m to $2.8m . . . . . that gives a better idea of the effect of a poor expansion pack and the launch of Dust.

The charts below give a brief summary of the historic and forecasts Profits and Cash Flows:

Free Cash Flow is cash flow after all costs but before payments to shareholders - i.e. it is the cash flow the company generates.  Operating Cash Flow is the cash flow a company generates before spending on expansion programs.  Net Cash is the cash less all borrowings - when it is -ve then the company is carrying net debt.

Items to sell for a beginner

The most common question I get is "What items should I be selling?"

In this post I will talk about a good item to sell and some of the thinking behind finding it.

It is a question I tend not to answer for two reasons.
Firstly, given Eve is all on one server, as soon as I say what item is a good idea then that item will be flooded with sell orders and so come down in price.

Secondly, by telling someone what items to sell I am not helping them.  Given my first point, my advice will only be good for a few days and then they will be back again having learned nothing on how to find good items to sell.

When I started my businesses of making ISK back in May with 4m ISK to invest I found the best sellers to be blueprints.  They are seeded by NPCs, so have a base value that they tend not to fall below.  And, with only 4m ISK, I was dealing in blueprints that the big traders completely ignore given they wont move the dials of their wealth.

The missile Blueprints were good earners.

The Nova Heavy Assault Missile Blueprint can be bought from Jita for 600,000 ISK, seeded by NPCs so the price is fixed.  It can be sold in Dodixie for 1.3m ISK making a nice return, about 2 sell every 3 days.  Small stuff, but a lot if your starting ISK is only 4m.

The Nova Heavy Missile Blueprint can also be bought from Jita for 700,000 ISK, seeded also by NPCs so the price is fixed.  It can be sold in Dodixie for 1.9m ISK, about 1 sells every 2 days.

Faster sellers are the Scourge Heavy Assault Missile Blueprint and Scourge Heavy Missile Blueprint.  They can be bought from Jita for 550,000 ISK and 700,000 ISK respectively and sold in Dodixie for 2.6m and 1.8m ISK.  They sell at least one per day but that is good profit for a beginner.

The latter is reasonably stable as shown on the graph below:

The key though is to learn how to find these.

My preferred route is to start with Eve-Central and compare selling prices between two systems.  See my post on how I use Eve-Central.

I found that starting small I then gradually worked my way up to trading in more expensive items and even today I still trade in some of the items I was trading in during my first few weeks.
 

My current income sources

When I started out in making ISK in Eve I focused on Regional Hauling, and that remains the dominant strategy today.

I am starting to diversify into Station Trading and Manufacturing.

For non-Eve players - "station trading" is when you buy and sell items in the same station, acting as a market maker.  In effect, making a return from the spread.

When I look at wealth I don't count assets I use in the course of my business such as ships, fittings etc nor do I add back any expenses such as skills purchased etc.  The wealth I disclose is made up of items that are ISK or are in the process of being converted to ISK.

At the moment, I merely look at how my wealth is distributed between ISK in my wallet, Items in Transit, Items that are in my hangers but will be sold, Items in Production, Buy orders (I.e part of Station Trading), Sell orders (Regional Hauling and Station Trading together) and of course my 20% provision against all sell orders*

The chart below shows how this has trended since I started back in May.

Going forwards I may try and split out the manufacturing sell orders from the trading sell orders to give an idea of what is generating my income - but the numbers are not yet big enough to be meaningful.

I may also try and estimate how much income came from each of my business strategies which are currently Regional Hauling, Station Trading and Manufacturing . . . . . but I suspect that will not be possible.

For me, the main purpose of this chart at the moment is to show the annoyingly high amount of ISK in wallet that I have which is sitting there earning no return!  Also, I can now see a slither of items as Buy Orders (one part of station trading) and items in Production (i.e. manufacturing).

 

 

* I take a 20% provision against the items I am selling.  Eve calculates wealth by adding up the value of the sell orders hence it is possible to increase your wealth by buying an item for 100m ISK and putting a sell order for 120m ISK (in this case your wealth would increase by 20m ISK).  For me, I want my wealth to be calculated at cost until i finally hold it as ISK.  I know that the value of my sell orders will likely fall over time as I update my orders downwards as competition reduces their prices before my items are sold.  Hence the 20% provision is my best guess as to what cost is or at least the maximum reduction I would need to make to my sell orders as a whole before they are sold.

My Eve Spreadsheets

The one thing that every Business needs in Eve is spreadsheets.  To be honest, in my case that probably reflects my personality but in my experience other ISK making players in Eve use spreadsheets profusely.

my current spreadsheet has 11 tabs:

1. Wealth - this one keeps a track of my wealth (sell orders, buy orders, Items in hangers, items in production, ISK in wallet etc).

2. Items to sell in Dodixie - this one keeps a list (which is duplicated on my quickbar) of all the items I can sell in Dodixie and compares the price of each item in Dodixie to the price of the item in Jita.  See my post on How to bring Jita prices into spreadsheets directly from the web.

3. A sheet that downloads from Eve-Central that compares the prices for all items between Dodixie and Jita in the Eve-Central database.  I use this one to find new ideas on items to buy in Jita to sell in Dodixie.

4. Items to sell in Hek - this one keeps a list (which is duplicated on my quickbar) of all the items I can sell in Hek and compares the price of each item in Hek to the price of the item in Jita.  A similar sheet to (2) above.

5. A sheet that downloads from Eve-Central that compares the prices for all items between Hek and Jita in the Eve-Central database.  I use this one to find new ideas on items to buy in Jita to sell in Dodixie.  A similar sheet to (3) above.

6. A summary of the manufacturing data in sheet (7) which lists the profit margins of all items I can manufacture (with the cost data pulled off the web from Eve-Central).  The sheet will also tell me what materials I need to purchase depending on what I select to manufacture.

7. All the manufacturing data (materials required) for all items I can manufacture.

8 to 10. Data sheets that pulls down prices in Jita of items from the web (from Eve-Central) for my trading in Dodixie and Hek, and my manufacturing operations.

11. A data sheet that lists the type Ids of all items in Eve.  I is used as a reference for sheets 8 to 10 and 6 to pull down data from Eve-Central.

My entire Eve business is run from this spreadsheet.

Looking at "Increase in Wealth per day"

At the moment, the main number I look at to determine the health and momentum of my business is the "increase in wealth per day", which is nothing more than the increase in wealth per month divided by the number of days in the month.

But, in many ways it gives me a good snap shot as to how I am doing and how I should be doing in the future.  At some stage my "increase in wealth per day" will flatten out and so my percentage increase in wealth each month will start to decline (i.e. my wealth will increase each month by the same amount but my total wealth will be rising, so a declining percentage increase each month . . . . . the curse of large businesses).

At present my "increase in wealth per day" is 245m ISK which therefore drives the 7.4bn increase in wealth per month.  The chart below shows how this has trended since I started back in May - the good news is that it is on a rising trend.  The bad news is that if work takes me away from the game for longer than 2 days at a time then it can suffer.

October will be a very slow month given I am away for most of it but I am hoping that my increase in wealth per day will continue to rise as I break into station trading and manufacturing.

My goal is to eventually get to 550m ISK per day which would mean I would be earning a Plex a day from my business.  (for non-Eve players, a Plex can be bought in game for ISK and used to extend your game time by 30 days).  I am a long way off that goal.

As ever, I restrict my time in Eve to 30 - 45 minutes per week day and so I am looking for low maintenance income generating strategies which generally pushes me into slow moving but high margin markets.  My fear is that one day I will discover the limit of how far this will take me and my increase in wealth will start to flatten out before I reach my goal of 550m ISK per day.

When I talk about wealth, I don't count assets I use in the course of my business such as ships, fittings etc nor do I add back any expenses such as skills purchased etc.  The wealth I disclose is made up of items that are ISK or are in the process of being converted to ISK.

Furthermore, I take a 20% provision against the items I am selling.  Eve calculates wealth by adding up the value of the sell orders hence it is possible to increase your wealth by buying an item for 100m ISK and putting a sell order for 120m ISK (in this case your wealth would increase by 20m ISK).  For me, I want my wealth to be calculated at cost until i finally hold it as ISK.  I know that the value of my sell orders will likely fall over time as I update my orders downwards as competition reduces their prices before my items are sold.  Hence the 20% provision is my best guess as to what cost is or at least the maximum reduction I would need to make to my sell orders as a whole before they are sold.